“They’re like good horses. You need good staff, simple as that,’’ Eurell said.

Eurell had been advertising for a foreman for two years when Jim Mason rang.

Eurell had been doing it tough. The X horses weren’t bobbing up and Eurell was being hammered by high costs, had become dizzy with racing’s 24/7 merry-go-round and was frustrated by 20 years of red tape.

Eurell reckons it’s probably a sign of the times that successful trainers group together to survive, maybe even prosper.

“The demands of the industry are so great. You can’t do it on your own,’’ he said.

Mason is unproven as ­Eurell’s foreman but his 307 career winners speaks volumes.

“A man of Jim’s ­quality … he kind of over-met our expectations, to be quite honest, but we both want the whole thing to work,’’ Eurell said.

Mason has been in the job only two days but says Eurell is “open to new ideas whereas some trainers are extremely tunnel-visioned’’.

The red tape that has had Eurell tied up for years is about to be released. He will be training on-course at Cranbourne in the near future.

“It’s not been a level playing field for a long time,’’ he said.

“The on-course trainers have had a huge advantage.’’

Eurell has a right-hand man with a Caulfield Cup under his belt and now all he and Mason need is a horse marked X.

“There are a few unraced ones that make it a bit easier to get out of bed in the morning and hopefully with what we (he and Mason) have achieved, we’ve got two sets of eyes on the same project and got the bases covered,’’ Eurell said.